After having won his first Titled Arena last November and getting on the podium 9 times before, GM Daniel Naroditsky (@RebeccaHarris) won his second Titled Arena. Second place was taken by IM Toivo Keinanen (@toivok3). Anonymous GM @Grey_parrot got third with a phenomenal performance of 3143. Another anonymous GM @Wild-King91 took fourth place and IM Minh Le Tuan (@mutpro) finished in fifth place.

Recap Race

The first Bullet Titled Arena of 2021 had a total of 8757 games played by 560 participants. This Arena was decided by streaks and not by berserking. There was 'only' a 6% berserk-rate. For the first half hour, leaders were switching quickly, with a lot of strong players being near the top. After an hour of play Naroditsky then managed to get some long streaks going and took a comfortable lead of over 15 points, which grew to almost 30 points at some points during the last hour. In the last 10 minutes he only managed to gain a further 3 more points, but with the big lead he got before, there was no chance for him to be overtaken, despite strong efforts from the other competitors.

As always there were a lot of streamers covering the Arena. IM Alex Astaneh (@AstanehChess) streamed the Warm-Up and the Titled Arena like almost any Titled Arena in the past. Also IM Eric Rosen (@EricRosen) streamed his point of view. We hope you all enjoy this format and you will be there for the next Titled Arena on 6th February, which will be Chess960!